Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” (post 6): Psychologically speaking, the person who wrote Epilogue is not the same person who wrote Chapter XIII.

The narrator of the Epilogue at the end of the novel says that “a mental patient calling himself the Master,” who had mysteriously been abducted from the hospital, “remained a mystery for the investigators. They could not find an explanation for [his abduction], nor could they learn the name of the abducted patient” (p. 330).

Compare the above to what had been said about the Master in Chapter XIII, titled “Enter the Hero,” where this character had first been introduced:

     “I am the Master.”

     “What is your name?” [asks Ivan].

     “I no longer have a name. I gave it up, just as I’ve given up everything else in life. Let’s drop the subject.”

     “Well, then at least tell me about your novel,” requested Ivan tactfully.

     “By all means. My life has turned out to be anything but ordinary, if I do say so myself,” [the Master began].

     …A historian by training, he had worked until two years ago at one of the Moscow museums and had also done translations…one day he won 100,000 rubles.

    “You can imagine my surprise,” [said the Master about winning the lottery].

     …He quit his job at the museum and began to write a novel about Pontius Pilate.

     “Ah, that was a golden age!” the narrator whispered, his eyes shining” (pp. 114-115).

Obviously, both the character Ivan and the narrator of Chapter XIII knew very well that the Master’s identity could have been determined from his college records, his employment at the museum, and his being a lottery winner.

Psychologically speaking, then, it had to have been someone else who wrote the Epilogue, since the narrator who wrote the Epilogue didn’t know that the Master’s identity could easily have been traced by authorities through his training as a historian at college, his job at a museum, his job as a translator, and his winning the lottery. Evidently, the one who wrote the Epilogue had neither written nor even read Chapter XIII.

To repeat, these two narrators are so psychologically distinct from each other that they write different things and have separate memory banks, which clearly makes them alternate personalities.

In addition, in Chapter XIII, that “the narrator whispered, his eyes shining” makes that narrator a character, too, and makes that character an alternate personality to whatever other character heard him whisper: As discussed in many previous posts—search “voices”—in multiple personality, the personality who is “out” may hear personalities who are not “out” as voices in their head, speaking (or whispering) from behind the scenes.

Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita. Trans. Burgin and O’Connor. New York, Vintage International/Random House, 1996